Monthly Archives: November 2009

Hey, the Warriors are on the board in ’09. We can all breathe out now.

A large part of the credit for this win goes to Don Nelson. His central conception of attacking Zach Randolph with Stephen Jackson and Corey Maggette was the difference in this game. When Memphis went away from Randolph offensively in the second half, they were left with nothing but a terrible defender. That’s how mismatches can win games. That’s classic Don Nelson small-ball.

It’s three games into the season, and the Warriors are still looking for their first win. The media and the fans are rumbling at the terrible play they’ve witnessed in the first two games, and if it continues into this game, at home against the woeful Grizzlies, that rumble will start growing into a roar. It already feels like the Warriors are playing for something significant.

Through the first two games, the Warriors have looked pretty crappy. I’m not going to rehash everything I’ve already posted about that. Here’s Private Jackson with a pithy summation: “I just think, like Coach said earlier, the first two games, we look like a team (on which) everyone’s playing for a contract and we’re not playing like a team. That’s all I can see.”

You can apply this statement to everyone on the team, if you like. “Everyone must look at himself in the mirror,” and so on. Certainly Corey Maggette has had a couple of stinkers. But the Warriors don’t look to CM to do anything on the offensive end but score. That’s his role. To me, Jackson’s statement rests squarely on the shoulders of Monta Ellis. He’s the player who’s had the ball in his hands the most often. He’s the player who has taken the most shots. He’s the player who has done an absolutely terrible job creating for his teammates. He barely even looks at them. And he’s the player who, when Curry has left the game and he has had sole responsibility at the point, has been leading the team over a cliff. Monta Ellis is the biggest culprit for the Warriors’ obvious lack of chemistry.

What can Don Nelson do about this? After some thought, I have decided that the solution lies in the lineups. Nellie has a lot of pieces on this team, and he has been doing a lot of experimenting with how they should fit together. I don’t think he’s found the right lineups yet. My simple prescription for fixing the Warriors’ chemistry is this: